Single target healing issues as hpala

[Nikeyla]

Hey guys, I recently got back to wow after pretty long break and decide to go for a healer, hpala specifically. Whole the gameplay seems interesting, I have some issues with single target healing in both mythic+ and pvp. I feel like the target just doesnt go up no matter, how much I spam heal him. In pvp, the dmg of 2+ enemy dps on the target usually heals it simply dies through my heals. In m+ Im healing for 30k/50k crits with my 430 ilvl gear and tanks having 700k+ life, I feel like Im so freaking weak.
Also Bursting mythic affix seems like huge cancer, but everytime I check some hpala video, his group doesnt even take any damage and he/she simply does dmg without any spam healing moments. I dunno if my random groups are so bad and ignore all mechanics, but I basically have to tryhard every 7+ run.
in pvp me or my target usually dies to some random multiple hits of non-ability based dmg doing 70-80k per hit within my gcd. I doubt I can do much about this at this point.

Can somebody give me an advice, how to fight my issues? I havent played any other healer since start of bfa (I quit within first few weeks) for updated comparison, but I never had such issues ever before. Hpala is supposed to be one of the stronger healers atm, so there must be something wrong with either gear or me not doing something correctly I guess. Thanks for any advice or explanation!

[Butler to Baby Sloths]

Are you holding cooldowns for those "oh shit" moments? Which build are you playing?

[Huzzaa]

Hey guys, I recently got back to wow after pretty long break and decide to go for a healer, hpala specifically. Whole the gameplay seems interesting, I have some issues with single target healing in both mythic+ and pvp. I feel like the target just doesnt go up no matter, how much I spam heal him. In pvp, the dmg of 2+ enemy dps on the target usually heals it simply dies through my heals. In m+ Im healing for 30k/50k crits with my 430 ilvl gear and tanks having 700k+ life, I feel like Im so freaking weak.
Also Bursting mythic affix seems like huge cancer, but everytime I check some hpala video, his group doesnt even take any damage and he/she simply does dmg without any spam healing moments. I dunno if my random groups are so bad and ignore all mechanics, but I basically have to tryhard every 7+ run.
in pvp me or my target usually dies to some random multiple hits of non-ability based dmg doing 70-80k per hit within my gcd. I doubt I can do much about this at this point.

Can somebody give me an advice, how to fight my issues? I havent played any other healer since start of bfa (I quit within first few weeks) for updated comparison, but I never had such issues ever before. Hpala is supposed to be one of the stronger healers atm, so there must be something wrong with either gear or me not doing something correctly I guess. Thanks for any advice or explanation!

Get more gear.

[Ladey Gags]

430 ilvl is really low. I know it doesn’t feel that low but ilvl seems to scale exponentially this expansion..idk why, it’s weird, but a 15 ilvl upgrade is absolutely ginormous.

Also get good corruptions. The Azerite beam heal essence (can’t remember name) helped me Get people topped on my Resto shammy Until my gear was better

[Biomega]

430 is on the very low end of gear at this point. You're at least 30(!) ilvl away from being on par for most content, more if you're doing high end. What that means is that your gear is ALSO unlikely to be very optimized in terms of proper stats, Azerite, corruptions, etc. - you cannot compare yourself to a decked-out streamer's performance.

The ilvl gap and extra optimization make a MASSIVE difference. It's hard for some people to visualize just how much of a difference even just a few ilvl can make at the high end, and you're a good CHUNK away, not just a few.

Don't be disheartened. It'll be tough at the start as you gear up, but if you're running with geared tanks that compensates somewhat. As your gear improves, you'll see things get a lot better very quickly.

That is assuming you know how to heal correctly, of course - that is the first thing you need to make sure of. Consult the usual guides (Icy Veins, Discords, etc.) and watch people perform, and you'll get that part covered. Then it's all about gear.

[Nikeyla]

Alright. Thanks for the info guys. It seems that everybody agrees on the fact that my gear is still pretty garbage. I wouldnt expect it to be such a huge difference. Ive heard that healers dont have too good corruptions anyway. But I still need to farm some essences and ilvl. I just wish it wasnt so boring. BFA doesnt offer exactly creative or fun way to catch up to at least a decent levels of performance. Never ending daily quests, visions for cloak upgrades, random bg spam for honor or arenas without gear for weeks to get the pvp essences...Hopefully they figure out some better content for SL.

[Ladey Gags]

Alright. Thanks for the info guys. It seems that everybody agrees on the fact that my gear is still pretty garbage. I wouldnt expect it to be such a huge difference. Ive heard that healers dont have too good corruptions anyway. But I still need to farm some essences and ilvl. I just wish it wasnt so boring. BFA doesnt offer exactly creative or fun way to catch up to at least a decent levels of performance. Never ending daily quests, visions for cloak upgrades, random bg spam for honor or arenas without gear for weeks to get the pvp essences...Hopefully they figure out some better content for SL.

Yeah getting up to par is pretty miserable when you’re trying to do it in one go. The only way I got through it on my main was by playing as everything was released, so it all just sort of got unlocked as I went along. This is the part of the expansion where I start gearing up alts and my god getting them to a decent level is just grind after grind after grind. It’s poor game design

[Nikeyla]

Yeah getting up to par is pretty miserable when you’re trying to do it in one go. The only way I got through it on my main was by playing as everything was released, so it all just sort of got unlocked as I went along. This is the part of the expansion where I start gearing up alts and my god getting them to a decent level is just grind after grind after grind. It’s poor game design

Yep, I must agree. I thought that like 430-440 should be decent to start pushing, but it seems that the diffence is insane and I have no idea where should I get the 460-470 gear tbh. Getting into hc raids or very high keys to get the 460+ rewards is impossible without getting a boost or spending days or weeks of farming daily q, cloak, visions etc. In pvp Im unable to keep the target up or myself against something i cant kite like dh. Even against stupid ppl, who dont use any interrupts I just cant outheal that at all. So Im not rly sure, where to start with these 460 items to get on par with others. Im sick of even thinking about doing more daily quests. I feel like its even more annoying than it used to be. I remember daily q used to be like 15 mins/day, but doing daily quests are like hour+ nowadays. I should also do the stupid flying daily quests on top of that because without flying I cant join any non-instanced content either. If this is Blizzards plan until SL, its pretty garbo future.

[Gestopft]

In m+ Im healing for 30k/50k crits with my 430 ilvl gear and tanks having 700k+ life, I feel like Im so freaking weak.

As other people have said, get more gear. World quests, events, M+, there's a variety of ways. Also Glimmer of Light is the go-to Azerite trait. I'd recommend Spirit of Preservation as your essence (it's from the assaults, so it's easy to get). Don't forget your CDs, including Bleassing of Sacrifice when the tank is taking a bunch of damage.

Also Bursting mythic affix seems like huge cancer, but everytime I check some hpala video, his group doesnt even take any damage and he/she simply does dmg without any spam healing moments. I dunno if my random groups are so bad and ignore all mechanics, but I basically have to tryhard every 7+ run.

Really good groups excel not just at avoiding damage, but at preventing damage. Most random groups won't do that. And Bursting can actually be easier at higher keys since it's easier to space mob deaths out. If groups do that well, the damage is fairly negligible. But again, most groups don't, so Beacon of Virtue (talent) is your very best friend in dungeons, especially on Bursting week.

[Demetrion]

Gear will help. Also, in PVP, don't expect your target to survive 2 DPS with you only spam healing. You need to use defensive cooldowns for that. In Mythic+ gear and essences and corruptions will help a lot.

[Nikeyla]

Gear will help. Also, in PVP, don't expect your target to survive 2 DPS with you only spam healing. You need to use defensive cooldowns for that. In Mythic+ gear and essences and corruptions will help a lot.

Of course, I dont expect to win by simply spam healing. Rotating cooldowns is important, but even with doing this it often felt like Im helpless. I admit that the team mate is a big pve hero, who doesnt understand, when and how to go back pillar hump etc, but I was used to being able to outplay the enemy. Now when stuff is almost globalled instantly if essences are timed or procced in the right moment, while Im healing for 30k hits 50k crits, it feels weird. But I will try to work on the gear then.

- - - Updated - - -

Really good groups excel not just at avoiding damage, but at preventing damage. Most random groups won't do that. And Bursting can actually be easier at higher keys since it's easier to space mob deaths out. If groups do that well, the damage is fairly negligible. But again, most groups don't, so Beacon of Virtue (talent) is your very best friend in dungeons, especially on Bursting week.

I absolutely missed Beacon of Virtue. Im fairly new at hpala. I never even considered it as an option before, because the divine purpose or beacon of faith were kinda no brainer options for me. Thanks for pointing that out. I will definitely use it way more now!

[Nikeyla]

OP I would recommend you to check the Wowhead guide for Holy Paladins and learn about the Glimmer of Light-azerite trait and its playstyle.

Another good resource is Ellesmere's website Wingsisup with some very good information specific to m+.

Thank you for the link. It actually looks pretty useful. Will definitely check it once I get home!

[Dakara]

Don’t pug as a healer on Bursting weeks is a good start

Jokes aside, you’re going through what I do every new expac as a healer, especially as a HPal. Without a decent base level of Haste it can very difficult to deal with the “oh crap” moments as a healer. And without the other stats, those heals feel like band-aids... add in a few Tanks who are used to rushing everything and it can be a struggle to keep up.

Don’t forget about your Mastery, especially when under-geared. It can be very easy for a new healer to stand at range and spam heal a dying tank, but as a Paladin, you lose efficiency with range.

It’s not just about ILVL in BFA though, if you don’t have the right essences, Azerite traits and now corruptions, your ilvl can be deceptive. Even at 430ILVL, with the right corruption effects you could do better than someone who boosted their alt to 450+ though M+ with no essences or corruptions.

[Ninjavitis]

With 430 ilevel, you probably don't wanna go above maybe 4-5. Also, bursting just sucks. Especially if you pug and your dps don't know how to stagger. If they pop a group and now there are 6-7 stacks of bursting, I'm keeping myself up and doing my best to help everybody else. That's beacon of virtue comes in. Honestly, for +s, it's just better than everything else. Also, like everyone else has said, glimmer is what you want. Try to get 3x glimmer as when you're able. When used right, Your healing is downright ridiculous.

[antelope591]

1) Use spirit of preseveration it helps a lot with ST in mythic+.

2) You just need more gear. Hpal is very gear dependent especially dependent on Glimmer traits, Haste and Ineffable Truth corruption. I was healing through up to 8 stacks of bursting this week with CD's, up to 5 is not even noticeable once you're geared enough.

3) The 7-10 key range is kind of a dead zone. Players in that range are usually new alts or boosted players who are just trying to get geared but the fact that they're undergeared makes the keys a lot harder than they should be.

[Jeckaa]

Just some tips:

Get better azerite pieces. You want glimmer on every piece.
If you have Alchemy make the trinket. Its good for M+. Another good trinket is the haste one from Ra den. Even a LFR one is good.

Best pvp trinkets are the totem from atal dazar and the obsidian claw from Maut. Both pretty easy to get.

In pvp only use holy light and in pve only use flash of light ( next to your other spells ofcourse ).

Dont underestimate the power of light of martyr. Spamming this ability can be very usefull. Also in M+ whenever you cast holy light its effective to instantly use martyr after it.

But overall 430 is realy low like others have said. Crit is important in pvp and M+. You should aim to get to 30% asap. 20% haste to start with is also good enough.

Good luck!

Ps: dont forget that holy paladin is all about rotating cooldowns. Outside of cd's your healing is always pretty weak even when 470+. You cant outheal 2 dps with cd's up in pvp. Even with wings up its pretty hard to do without some sort of dmg reduction.

[Spacewalrus2010]

Tips:

1. Crit is important in dungeon content. A lot of your throughput is dependent on crits from holy shock. Haste also very good as well.

2. In PvP the #1 issue I see new Hpala using is spamming flash of light. Light's Grace is pretty much mandatory in PvP and makes your Holy light spell your better heal. It has a longer cast time so you need to play around that.

3. Holy paladins are cooldown dependent more than any other class imo. You need to plan your CDs accordingly.

4. Learn to spot what is your fault vs a group members fault. It makes it a lot easier to tell if you are doing things wrong if your warrior isn't using Ignore Pain or if DPS aren't interrupt important stuff.


Also gearing up is going to be more painful the more people have time to be ahead of you. It's very easy to gear up at the beginning of a patch or expansion due to everyone not expecting absurd ilvls to clear content with. As for ways to get beyond 430 ilvl, there are quite a few ways.

You can farm conquest points via arena and other activities. It can be a slog, but you'll be guaranteed a 445 ilvl piece after 500 points. After I think the 11th week, the rewards become ilvl 460. I use this as a primary method to get my azerite pieces (they are pretty big upgrades). M+ is still worth doing. M4-7+ is what will give you decent upgrades. You can do these at your ilvl, just be prepared for shit groups from time to time if you are pugging.

Best bet is to join a guild though. Usually if you can show that you put some effort in to raids and are there to stay, you'll get geared up in no time.